Trump visits shooting victims at Florida hospital

Miami, Feb 16 (EFE).– President Donald Trump arrived Friday at a South Florida hospital where some of those wounded in this week’s massacre at a high school northwest of Fort Lauderdale are being treated.

Area television stations broadcast images of the president and first lady Melania Trump walking down a corridor at Broward Health North Hospital in Deerfield Beach, where they spent time with patients and caregivers.

The Trumps, accompanied by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, arrived at Palm Beach International Airport shortly before 6 pm and immediately boarded a helicopter for the trip to the hospital.

From the hospital, the presidential party traveled to the Broward Sheriff’s Office in Ft. Lauderdale, where Trump was to receive a briefing on Wednesday’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, which left 17 dead and 15 wounded.

The perpetrator, Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old who has had a history of mental illness, is at the main Broward County jail in Fort Lauderdale facing 17 counts of premeditated murder.

“I will be leaving for Florida today to meet with some of the bravest people on earth – but people whose lives have been totally shattered,” Trump wrote Friday morning on Twitter.

The White House did not disclose in advance exactly when Trump would visit the hospital as part of a previously scheduled trip to the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.